


I Am but Ordinary (I Bring Your World to an End, Brother)

by ArtsyDeath



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Anxiety, Claustrophobia, Consequences, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Drama, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Food Issues, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Lesbian Character, Mental Health Issues, Post-Betrayal, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, Self-Discovery, Sibling Bonding, Tattoos, Unilateral hearing loss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-05 06:53:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17913929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtsyDeath/pseuds/ArtsyDeath
Summary: There’s impact in words, in how they’re shaped, the implication, the want behind them – especially in powers that put meaning to them where there should have been none.-Or: Vanya finds herself back in time, eight days before the apocalypse, faced with the aftermath of the ramifications of a single word and her own actions as she does one last hesitant attempt at reaching out for her family.





	1. Returning Home

_I heard a Rumour you think you’re just Ordinary._

There’s impact in words, in how they’re shaped, the implication, the want behind them – especially in powers that put meaning to them where there should have been none.

_Ordinary._

Vanya stares down at her hands, the pale skin, nails bitten down – dry, covered in scratches that disappeared up the sleeves of her button-up shirt.

A faint tremble – she’d only had coffee and a bagel for breakfast the day before.

Vanya breathes in, out, feeling the way her chest expands, free from the cloying air of the box, back in the same old apartment that had been hers since she scrambled together enough to get out of the Academy.

Turning her back – publishing her book, cutting the bonds to her siblings, to her father, her mother, to Pogo, in a cry for attention that remained unanswered as she faded back to nothing.

It had never been about her – the curiosity that called people to buy it had been about her siblings, about their powers, about their personalities, their eccentric growth under the man who bought them and she was nothing more than the voice to give them that.

She squeezes her eyes shut.

In just a few hours the news about their father’s death would blare across all the screens in the country.

Paranoia claws at her – a terrible sort of wretchedness that mixes with fury as she shivers, a hand coming down to touch against the pocket of her coat on the couch pillow beside her – feeling the plastic container, hearing the faint rattle of pills with her left ear.

She lifts her hand up, snapping her fingers by her right, slowly lowering it and clenching her hands back together in her lap.

 **“What are you going to do?”** Vanya twitches, opening her eyes to stare at the apparition of what she’d been reflected in the television screen.  

“I can’t be the only one who travelled back,” she answers herself. “I have to know.”

 **“You’re kidding yourself if you think they care,”** younger Vanya scoffs. **“And if you are the only one who returned – what are you going to do? Lounge in that mansion, counting down the days to the apocalypse, pretending one of them are miraculously going to change and find it inside their _rotten little hearts_ to love you?”**

Vanya clenches her fists. “I have to know,” she repeats, a weak shudder rippling through the apartment.

 **“And if they did come back?”** younger Vanya sneers. **“Going to waltz right back into the box on your own free will?”**

“I won’t let them,” Vanya promises herself. “I haven’t taken the pills. I won’t take another one _ever._ I broke out once. I can break out again. No one is ever going to lock us up again.”

Younger Vanya watches her, eyes flaring white, and Vanya feels the responding flash through her own before they fade back to brown and she finds herself once again alone in her apartment.

-

What is the implication of _Ordinary?_

Vanya looks at herself in the mirror of the cab – sees the dull clothes, the dull hair, the dull skin, the dull flat look of her eyes and the way her mouth naturally curves down, seeing the lines in her face, years spent amounting to _nothing_.

Until she got first chair.

Until she brought the end of the world.

And then nothing amounted to anything.

Just like her.

“Stop!” The words escape louder than she means, startling the cab driver who shoots her a look after pulling to an abrupt halt and she presses a roll of cash into his hand before slipping out, breathing hard as she looks around her, past the people walking down the streets – focusing the sound and noise that is too loud and too distant at the same time.

She searches blindly for the sign she'd seen, wiping wet hair away from her face impatiently, barely noticing the rain as she sets her path forward and pushes the door to the shop open with a jingle of a bell.

She nearly throws it open in the face of a woman who blinks at her in surprise and Vanya flushes but pushes forward before second thoughts can crowd her. “Do you – do you have time now?” she asks, faltering when she recognises the sign for lunch in the woman’s hand. “Oh,” she hears herself saying weakly. “I should have – I didn’t think-“

The woman reaches around her, strands of pink hair tickling her nose, and Vanya leans out of the way – swallowing at the sight of the smile that greets her when she pulls back.

“I think I can take one more before lunch.” She offers a hand and Vanya grasps it instinctively. “Felicia.”

“Vanya.”

-

There’s something freeing in the sound of the scissor – hair falling around her, pooling on the floor until it’s just below her ears, a hand dragging through the strands to pull them back from her face in a stylish sort of mess before Felicia leans down beside her face.

“What do you think?” she asks, smiling, and Vanya reaches up – touching her fingers against the short strands at her neck, feeling the sharp difference from what had always been there like a heavy weight of an unknown expectation.

“I feel… not so Ordinary.”

She even manages a smile, a strange and wane thing that looks foreign on her face – stretching muscles that seem to have forgotten how to work properly.

“I’m glad,” Felicia says with a relieved breath. “You looked like you needed a bit of a change.”

“I did,” Vanya says with more force than she means, snapping her mouth when a shudder ripples through the shop and forcing herself to still.

Vanya watches the other through the mirror, seeing a whisper of a young girl with long brown hair from the corner of her eyes before she forces it away and focuses on the thoughtful face of the stranger, flushing and ducking her head when she snags the brown eyes in the mirror.

“I,” Felicia says, a hand coming up to squeeze Vanya’s shoulder, “think it was a good change,” she says firmly before smiling. “You look very cute.” She winks.

Vanya doesn’t think anyone has ever called her _cute_ in her life and she gives her mirage a dubious look.

-

She returns to the mansion nearly two hours later than she had the first time – wearing a greyish blue button-up with small stems and little yellow flowers creeping up the left side in a subtle splash of colour.

There isn’t much time left to the funeral and Five’s consequent return from the future but she still finds herself stilled in place, umbrella over her head, the rattle of pills in the pocket of her jacket as she shifts.

She stuffs her hand down it, gripping and pulling it up to stare at it.

For as long as she could remember she had taken them – for her _sickness._ Never thinking, never questioning, just another mechanical part of her life that kept going on and on, cramming and twisting her emotions so badly up inside of her that she hadn’t realized just how much they’d stolen from her until she was finally off them and _too much_ blossomed in its wake.

Vanya feels a shiver creeping through her, out into the tips of her fingers as she carefully pushes them down against the orange plastic, watching it crumble to dust that slips between her fingers, stolen away by a ripple of wind that tugs at a stray strand of hair.

She pushes the doors open, stepping into what had been her home as well as her hell, a nightmare that stretched through years of never amounting.

There is no Allison coming down to meet her and Vanya finds herself stepping into the living room and the painted picture of Five – drawn against her will to the brother who she had always been the closest to until he disappeared.

She’d spent years making his favourite sandwiches except that last night – light turned off and the bag of marshmallows and jar of peanut butter untouched in the kitchen.

And the next morning she’d been gone, long before anyone else opened their eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Diego’s rough voice makes her fingers twitch against her thigh – remembering his face through the glass of the _box._

She hadn’t been able to hear them but he had argued for her – he and Klaus both – until Luther was allowed to put his foot down. As always.

They had left her there for _hours._

A shiver ripples beneath her skin, carefully restrained only by sheer will, before she slowly turns to meet his eyes.

No shouts, no knives being drawn.

There is no blame – just a blank familiar dislike in his gaze.

“You don’t belong here,” Diego says with a twist of his mouth. “Not after what you did.” His eyes are intent, however, searching hers with a frown when she doesn’t as much as twitch and she tips her head, stepping past him and trailing up the stairs as he folds his arms and watches her leave.

“He wouldn’t want you here!” he calls after her, leaving little doubt to who, exactly, _he_ was.

“He bought me just as well as he bought you,” Vanya calls back, startling Diego who frowns at her back. “I have every right,” she says beneath her breath, steps heavy as she makes her way up and down the corridor to her old room.

The violin weight falls strangely on her back as she steps through the doorframe, as if burdened– a memory of being young, of finding herself with something of her own, something to make her more than _Ordinary_.

Their father had allowed her to keep it despite the clear care behind it and she had treasured it for years because of it.

She remembers the way it had turned white in her hands before Allison fired the gun at her ear.

She was still deaf at her right ear.

She doesn’t know if the violin had remained white.

She hadn’t dared to open it since returning.

-

She remains in her room for a long time.

Closing her eyes at the sound of music coming from Luther’s room.

Vanya doesn’t know if she’s avoiding herself or her siblings but once the time of Five’s arrival approaches, the last notes of the song stolen by a rattle of energy that blacks out everything in the house, she rubs her sweaty palms against her jeans.

She leave her jacket on her bed, shouldering her violin and bringing her umbrella with her, trailing down the stairs and finally out to the courtyard where the rest of her siblings had already gathered in the rain – drawn by the strange energy force.

She bares her teeth at the sight of Luther and the world _ripples_ but she forces it down before taking the last step out onto the pavement, opening her umbrella up and avoiding their surprised gazes as she takes a silent vigil just a step away from them.

“Vanya…” Allison sounds surprised but also unsure and Vanya forces herself to stare up at the ripple of blue with steady attention as Luther and Diego crowds the rest behind them, trying to reach for her but missing as she steps neatly out of the way with a flat look of warning that makes Luther pause.

She sees the old face of her brother first – what he’d become – but it soon changes, going backwards until a fifteen-year-old Five falls flat on the ground in clothes far too big for him.

For the first time since waking up something inside of her eases as her brother climbs to his feet, staring down at himself with a vague and abstract sort of horror before looking up at them.

“Shit.”

-

Vanya trails off to the kitchen while the rest crowd around Five, digging forth a bag of marshmallows and a nearly untouched jar of peanut butter and is carefully layering the fluffy white candies in tight rows as Five steps into the kitchen in a ripple of blue, pausing in surprise as she puts the top half on and holds it out expectantly.

“Coffee?”

“Yeah…” Five watches her as she reaches into her pocket, pulling up the plastic bag of instant coffee powder she’d carried with her from her apartment and putting water to boil.

He seats himself at the end of the table, biting down into his sandwich, munching thoughtfully as the rest of their siblings crowd inside, argument pausing at the sight of them.

Vanya stirs the powder into the water, watching as it turns liquid black, and pulls out two cups – pouring them one each as Klaus practically crowds himself into Five’s face until Luther pulls him back, leaving him criss-cross in the middle of the siblings.

“Thank you,” Five says as she puts the mug in front of him before taking a seat beside him, warming her hands on her own.

The conversation goes much like before and Vanya stares into her coffee as she keeps half-an-ear on it, aware of the way Five’s gaze keeps darting towards her.

-

She finds him in front of his portrait after he’d stepped away to shower and change and the picture of him is eerie – so young and yet impossibly old at the same time, dressed in the clothes that had been mandatory in their youth.

Vanya wonders just how strange it really is for him – thrown back after experience the ramifications of the apocalypse _she_ had caused.

He was her one true victim and if there was anyone she owed to try it was him.

“Nice to know Dad didn’t forget me,” he says as she approaches him silently. “Read your book, by the way.” His gaze slides over her hair, down the little yellow flowers on her shirt, to the scratches on her hands and bitten-down nails. “Found it in a library that was still standing.” A quirk of his lips. “I thought it was pretty good, all things considering.” A pause. “Yeah, definitely ballsy, giving up the family secrets. Sure that went over well.”

There’s a silent sort of expectancy to him and she feels her mouth, impossibly, twitching up.

He’d always been theatrical. Intent. _Arrogant._ But here he was, back to save the world from the apocalypse and yet taking the time to pause and inquire about her in a round-about way that was so _Five_ that she finds her hand rising to cover her mouth.

“I missed you,” she tells him earnestly, meaning it.

He hadn’t been there to lock her up, hadn’t arrived until the others had already interrupted her night, taking even that from her.

Five rocks back on his heels in surprise and Vanya remains still as he leans forward to peer at her – realizing that even so young he was taller than her, just by inches, but enough that her head tilts to meet the dark brown eyes of her brother.

“You came back to find and prevent the cause of the apocalypse,” she hears herself saying, ignoring the cry of younger Vanya as she appears behind her brother, reflected furious and vicious in the large windows as she allows her eyes to bleed white before her shocked brother as she gives him a wane sort of smile. “Congratulations, you found the cause.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What does it mean to be _Ordinary?_ Arguably a lot of things in this world and I have so many thoughts and ideas crowding around after watching season one to an end a second time. Making this a two-part thing, maybe three (or five) depending on how I structure things up. 
> 
> I really loved Five and Vanya's relationship so it will be the front focus but all the siblings are going to be crammed in because I am so soft for dysfunctional families.
> 
> I'm artsy-death on tumblr if you want to swing by. Hope you enjoyed!


	2. Dinner For Two

”You-” Five cuts himself off, turning abruptly as Allison steps into the room, a complicated look flashing through his eyes as he looks back to her before it smoothed out into a familiar sort of confidence. “I am glad to be back,” he tells her, perhaps louder than he means, for Allison pauses to give him an odd look.

Vanya inclines her head to the silent request in his eyes, watching as he makes a strange sort of twitchy movement before turning and vanishing into the house.

“What was that all about?” Allison asks, staring after their youngest and oldest brother with a raised brow before turning back to her and Vanya swallows, giving a weak shrug, hands disappearing down the pockets of her jeans.

“You just keep your secrets,” her sister says with a touch of bemusement but then she’s smiling and Vanya stills in place as she steps forward, bending down to pull her into a hug.

Allison smells like soft flowers and she’s warm and Vanya can’t resist pushing just a bit closer, breathing her in, remembering the flow of blood from between her fingers, the surprise in her sister’s eyes as she fell, the echoing horror inside of her even with the knowledge of what had been done to her at their father’s orders.

She draws back and Vanya twitches as fingers brushes the ends of her short hair. “You got a new haircut,” Allison says admiringly and Vanya’s shoulders knots. “It suits you,” her sister says with a smile. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything but long hair.”

“Thank you,” Vanya manages to get out, clearing her throat, unsure what to say, how to act.

There’s a strange and profound awkwardness in the knowledge that she had stolen her sister’s voice and nearly her life, the remains of that choice paid in her partial deafness from the gunshot that should have killed her in return but hadn’t.

What had made Allison spare her she can’t say. They had never been close – Vanya had always been the outsider looking in, side-lined in family portraits, left alone for hours at a time with only music and her mother’s gentle humming for company as the world celebrated the rest of her siblings.

It is impossible to forget the cold-shoulders, the impatience, the feeling of being in the way, underfoot and misplaced in her very existence even for doing something simple as lending her sister a hair tie.

But Allison hadn’t wanted her in the _box._ Vanya remembers that. Even with her voice stolen from her she’d fought to have her released, fury and helplessness in her gaze as Luther steered her away, the rest of her siblings following, Pogo with one last lingering look in his old eyes before she was left alone, mind screaming and fracturing under the knowledge that even with powers she hadn’t measured up.

“Are you okay?” Allison touches her shoulder and Vanya flinches before she can stop herself, realizing she’d gotten lost in thought as she jerks up to meet her sister’s eyes.

“I’m fine,” she squeezes out, clawing her fingers against her thighs inside her pockets. “Just – a lot on my mind,” she finishes lamely.

Allison’s look makes it obvious that she doesn’t really believe her but, mercifully, she doesn’t push. “It is strange to be back here,” she says instead. “It’s been what – thirteen years?” It had been fourteen for Vanya – the first to leave after Ben’s death and Five’s disappearance, but she musters enough for a nod, avoiding her sister’s gaze and choosing not to remark on it.

“I never thought we were going to see Five again,” Allison muses. “Do you think what he says is true? That he’s really fifty-eight-years-old and back from the future?”

“I don’t know why he’d lie,” Vanya says awkwardly.

“It just seems so far-fetched,” Allison sighs, glancing out one of the big windows. “Luther says we’re holding the funeral in an hour or so – do you want to grab something to eat meanwhile? Catch up?”

Vanya’s stomach squeezes at the thought but she finds herself nodding and Allison’s smile is far too wide for something to simple – the deep colour of her lips making it all the more apparent. “I think I saw enough ingredients to make some waffles,” she says brightly and Vanya forces herself into movement, trailing after her towards the kitchen.

They find Klaus stretched out on the dining room table, a bottle of whisky cradled to his chest with one arm, the other stretched out with a cigarette trailing smoke lazily towards the ceiling.

He turns his head, dragging himself up into a sitting position when he fixates his eyes on her. “Vanya!” he says with a drunk sort of brightness. “I love your new haircut, sis!” He makes a grabby sort of movement for her, Allison taking the chance to liberate him of the bottle as she makes her way past him while Vanya hesitantly steps forward, sliding her hands into his.

His hands are warm, his fingers long and elegant in a way hers aren’t, bitten and scratched as they are, and she feels a flush of embarrassment as he brushes over her dry skin – saying nothing as he tugs at her hands, making her turn this and that way with _oohs_ and _aahs_ of appreciation.

“Do you want some waffles, Klaus?” Allison asks as he makes Vanya spin all the way around.

“Would I! Sister, you spoil me.” He releases Vanya who wastes no time sliding her hands back out of sight into the long sleeves of her shirt.

Klaus had always been the most noticeably affected by his powers – or rather the crutch of drugs and alcohol he used to numb himself from it. Her own want of a power and his want to rid himself of his had left a distance between them as they grew older.

It’s impossible not to see the way his make-up is smudged around his eyes to hide the bags beneath them – the strained flush to his cheeks, the dilation of his pupils bringing a sort of dullness to them that look strange compared to the stretch of his eager smile as Allison set him to whisking the ingredients, his brow dipping with an endearing sort of focus.

Barefoot, dressed in one of Allison’s old skirts and a dark coat hanging open over his bare chest.

She and Klaus had always been the odd-ones out in dealing with their own problems and there’d been and understanding in that, at least.

“How have you been, Klaus?” she asks, carefully settling down on the bench running alongside the table as Allison slides a bowl of strawberries and blueberries down it.

He blinks at her, a sweaty curl drooping sadly on his forehead as he tilts his head, only saved from spilling waffle batter over himself by a quick-to-react Allison who nabs the whisker out of his hand as he raises a hand to brush at it.

“I’m good!” he says, just a tad too loud to be completely honest. “You know me, always doing _fine._ Got my one day of sobriety chip just a day ago, in fact!” He palms his coat, finding the small coin after a bit of searching and presenting it to her triumphantly.

Vanya reaches out, taking it carefully.

“That’s good, Klaus,” she says gently. “I’m glad.”

Another blink, a look as if he isn’t quite sure what to make of her, smile fading into something hesitant the longer he stares before he gives himself a little shake and his attention slides back to Allison as she brandishes the first waffle with a raised brow to them both.

-

There’s something ugly in her chest as she listens to Pogo’s words, refusing to look at him, and Diego’s mouth is curling, something old jaded and bitter in his eyes.

Vanya’s gaze trails to Klaus who had crammed himself under a children’s umbrella, far too small him, just enough to keep his cigarette from getting wet.

There’s a vague memory of an older Ben outlined in blue energy – tentacles lashing through the air, Klaus wide-eyed and manically triumphant in the middle of it, and she finds herself wondering if they are all gathered together for the funeral, watching the sad wet pile of ash on the ground and speaking words as if it meant anything.

But she won’t know unless she asks and there’s something that makes her hesitate, as if trying to put name to a secret.

“He was a monster.” Klaus wheezes a laugh at Diego’s words. “He was a bad person and a worse father,” Diego continues, ignoring him. “The world’s better off without him.”

“Diego,” Allison warns.

“My name is Number Two,” Diego says flatly. “You know why? Because our father couldn’t be bothered to give us actual names. He had _Mom_ do it.”

Grace, who had always been sensitive to Diego, angled towards him at the sound of her moniker. “Would you like something to eat?”

“No, Mom, it’s okay,” Vanya reaches out, putting a hesitant hand on her arm, twitching as she remembered walls concaving and collapsing, Grace buried and forgotten, so easily discarded.

Grace falters. “Oh, okay.”

“Look, you wanna pay your respects?” Diego steps forward, hand sweeping through the air, his grin mocking and cold. “Go ahead!” He challenges. “But at least be honest about the kind of man he was.”

“You should stop talking now,” Luther says, fists curling.

“You know, you of all people should be on my side here, Number One,” Diego continues, unrepentant.

“I am warning you,” Luther pushes and Vanya slots her eyes towards him, tucking her chin down her scarf to hide the stretch of her grin in anticipation, a shiver of excitement creeping through her, out to the very tips of her fingers.

“After everything he did to you? He had to ship you a million miles away-“

“Diego, stop talking,” Luther grounds out.

“- _that’s_ how much he couldn’t stand the sight of you!” Diego exclaims triumphantly.

It’s too much for Luther who lurches towards him and for all that he’s grown in size and strength it adds a clumsiness to him and Diego has always been limber, dodging and giving back hard, mania in his grief and anger as he wrestles with their much larger brother.

Vanya spies Klaus trying to shepherd Five behind him, Allison exasperated, arms folded where she stands in front of Mom.

Diego slams his fist down hard, over and over again with strength that comes from years of remaining active while Luther had spent the last four years on the moon, muscles twining in the gravity of it.

“Boys, stop this at once!” Pogo cries as Diego clasps his hands together and slams them down _hard._

Klaus shares none of his reservations. “Hit him! _Hit him!_ ”

Five’s mouth thins but he doesn’t leave, even when Ben’s statue crumbles to the ground and Diego stumbles back, hand grasping for the hilt of a knife with fury in his eyes and this time Vanya doesn’t cry out in warning, the world oddly still and silent around her as her brother draws his hand back and lets it fly.

It is Five who intercepts it, stepping from one point to another, grasping it just before it can slam into Luther’s chest, turned wide-open without her warning to caution him out of its path.

Diego falters, a strange look in his eyes before he turns around and shoulders past Klaus who raises his hands up, sliding liquidly out of his path with a turn on his heel and a low whistle. “Wow,” he says. “Talk about us nearly having a second funeral _at_ a funeral!” He throws an arm around Allison. “I mean, at least it would have spared us a trip but _still._ ”

Luther gives him a flat look and Allison shakes Klaus off her, hurrying after him when he leaves, his steps heavy, her gaze complicated as she draws the doors shut behind them.

Vanya finds herself with Grace, Klaus, Pogo and Five – rain smattering down in her umbrella, her shoulders slowly relaxing, not even aware of having tensed in the first place as her smile slowly dies behind her scarf, leaving a jittery sort of feeling behind as her heartbeat slowly eases.

“Good catch,” she tells Five mildly when his eyes finds hers.

He drops the knife to the ground with a scoff.

-

Vanya stops by the supermarket on her way home, picking up bread, a jar of peanut butter and a bag of marshmallows along with rice, some sweet and sour sauce and a package of frozen stir-fry, knowing full well her cabinets were painfully bare.  

She even picks up some wine, lingering for a long while over the red bottles before deciding on two.

Five had always been a picky eater when they were young but she remembers his mention of cockroaches and ends up throwing some chocolate and a bag of chips onto the band on the off-chance it might catch his fancy before bagging it all up and paying for it.

It’s a bit of a fumble to get the keys out with her arms crowded by several bags but she manages, carefully sidling through the old doors and into the murky hallway with the broken lamp dangling above the stairs leading up to her apartment.

Instead of bothering with her keys a second time she knocks on her door, waiting until Five very slowly pulls it open.

“You should put locks on your windows,” he says, just as last time, but there’s a certain awkwardness behind it and she realises that she’s caught him wrong-footed by not doing what he expected of her.

“Hopefully there are no rapists outfitted with climbing gear in the area,” she says just a touch wryly before holding up her bags. “Dinner?”  

-

She helps cleaning and bandaging his arm while the rice and vegetables cook on low temperature in the kitchen, the smell strange inside the walls of her apartment.

She can’t remember the last time she cooked anything – normally she ordered in once a week, stretching it out over several days, eating it in front of the television while playing some games or watching reruns of old crime shows.

There were bags of different nuts crammed into one of the cupboards for easy snacking on days when she barely managed to drag herself out of bed but it was the only thing she kept at home semi-reliably and it was because she tended to buy it in bulk.

“When I jumped forward and got stuck in the future, do you know what I found?”

 **“Nothing,”** she answers with him, their voice layering. **“Absolutely nothing.”**

“So we have done this before,” Five muses, leaning back as she snags the surgical tape off with a bite and a bit of careful eye measuring, securing it in place and stroking her thumb over to make sure it was sitting properly.

She pulls the package of kid Band-Aids from one of the bags, choosing carefully before deciding on one with a smiling cat and settling it on top to a long look from her brother.  

“Hilarious,” he says but he makes no attempt to remove it as he slides his sleeve back in place.

“You know what’s funny,” Five says, watching as she pushes a bag of snacks and bars of chocolate over to his side at the table, snagging one and prying it open. “I’m the time traveller here but _somehow_ you’re the one surprising _me_ which implies that we did the whole song-and-dance to the apocalypse that you claim _you are responsibly for_ and yet _you_ were the one sent back. No one else.”

“Just me,” she agrees when before he can start reconsider that particular angle. “I don’t know why – last thing I remember was Allison not-shooting me after all of you tried to kill me and then I was back here.”

Five stills with his teeth above the bar of chocolate, something complicated filtering through his eyes as he slowly lowers it back to his lap, staring at her.

“For a time traveler you sure were slow to the party,” Vanya says with humour she doesn’t feel, the words falling flat from her mouth, fingers curling together.

She rises abruptly, startling him, and he stares after her as she makes her way to the kitchen seconds before the clock starts beeping insistently for attention.

She serves them both up, tucking the bottle of wine under her arm and balancing it all along with a glass each to the table Five was busying himself making space on.

Vanya doesn’t bother with the wine opener, twisting her hand and pulling the cork up with a flash of white through her eyes before pouring them both under his heavy gaze.

“I feel like I should be apologizing,” he ventures carefully and she snorts – pushing his glass over to him and fishing a fork each from the back pocket of her jeans, presenting it with a flourish.

“You’re not the one who is going to end the world.” She meets his eyes as he grasps the metal. “ _I’m_ the one who is going to end _yours_.”

The knowledge of what she’s about to bring, the horror that veers with a deep sated satisfaction from a life time of amounting to **nothing** , emotions shoved downdown _down_ to a pit that gapes wide and all-consuming inside of her, threathening to swallow her up at any moment, the wood around them creaking with a loud protesting groan as she drops the fork, shoving her hands under her armpits and curling over herself.

She hears him swear and she remembers the way he’d rushed towards her in the end – the pleading disbelief that had warred in his eyes into the last second before Allison fired the gun.

She feels blood dripping from her nose as she struggles to center herself and the world slowly comes back around her as she breathes out with a shuddering sigh, prying her eyes open to find her brother frozen in place, hand hovering uselessly over her shoulder, pale and far more wide-eyed that she’s ever seen him.

“I’m sorry,” she says automatically, raising her hand to swipe at her nose, but he catches it, lowering it down to her lap – something unreadable in his gaze as she focuses on breathing in and out.

“Stay,” he tells her. “Don’t move.”

He climbs to his feet, stepping carefully over the food that had spilled onto the floor, the table split in two, and she stares down at the mess with a numb sort of tiredness as blood drips down her shirt.

He returns with two tampons, twisting the plastic off and dropping them aside as he kneels down before her, nudging her head back and unceremoniously stuffs them up her nose as she blinks at him.

“It might have been a long time since we saw each other,” he says carefully as he considers his handiwork. “But I know you, Vanya. There is more to this story than you’re telling me. Something that hurts _here_.” He presses a hand over his own heart, bits of sawdust from the cracked ceiling clinging to his dark hair and something painfully earnest in his expression. “We have eight days to figure this out, alright? Together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing I find very interesting with Five is his connection to Vanya. 
> 
> He lived the consequences of her actions. In a way, I like to think of him as her greatest victim.
> 
> But even after Vanya causes the destruction of the world he's the first to tell Luther to bring her along. He doesn't have to. There are several ways to influence things, to manipulate the outcome, but he chooses to bring her back when she's at the most vulnerable but also most volatile and I find it a very interesting character trait of his.
> 
> Anyway, this is turning out a bit longer than I expected because Vanya is dealing with a lot of stuff and Five is dealing with a lot of stuff and the other siblings are dealing with a lot of stuff. So, a five-parter, I think?
> 
> It's gonna be a bumpy ride.
> 
> Thank you for your lovely comments and support, it makes it just all that more fun to write and share~
> 
> I tend to lurk around tumblr as artsy-death if you want to swing by there.


	3. Of Dumpsters and Gargoyles

Vanya opens her eyes to an apartment that isn’t empty.

She closes them, listening to what sounds suspiciously like the puttering of boiling water on the stove and inhaling the familiar aroma of coffee.

The first time around he’d left in the middle of the night and she remembers the mix of worry and resignation even as she grabbed for her coat, hurrying back to the only place that made sense.

But this time he’d stayed.

Vanya touches her fingers against her lips, feeling the upward turn of the corner of her mouth as she worms out from the dull yellow covers and pads out in the dark sweats and loose shirt she’d slept in.

Only to pause.

She stares at the mess – cupboards gaping open, fridge and freezer emptied, the bags of chips she’d bought all in varied states of being eaten, bags of nuts crammed up beside them, spilling out over the counter, her whiskey decanter resting in the middle of it all with a half-filled glass beside it.

“Five…?”

She steps into the room, turning the stove off, putting the boiling coffee aside and slipping the tray of melting ice cubes back into her freezer.

She steps to her couch, brushing her fingers over the messy blankets and stops at the end of it, staring down at the crown of hair that peeked up, barely visible over the armrest.

Vanya’s fingers twitches as she gently slides down beside him, onto her knees, hands resting on her thighs, unsure what to do – unsure if her touch would be unwelcome, if it might make things worse-

“I never found you.”

She stares at him, curled up around one of her pillows, as brown an unassuming as the rest of the things in her apartment, swaying a bit, a strained smile on his face.

“I thought that – if I couldn’t find you, that meant that there was a chance that you were out there. Alive.”

Vanya remains silent, staring at him, until he snorts and drags a hand through his hair. “I meant to make breakfast but your cupboards are depressingly empty.”

“I bought some peanut butter and marshmallows.”

“You _hate_ peanut butter and marshmallows.”

The fact that he’d remembered – Vanya swallows, fingers curling before she forces them to relax and she reaches out, putting a hand gently on his shoulder, feeling the curve of his bone as she squeezed it gently to a shudder that runs through him almost like a sigh.

“Why don’t we order in?” she suggests and he gives her a thankful smile, left cheek dimpling as she straightens out. “Thai alright?”

“Not really breakfast material,” he calls after her.

“It is if you will it,” Vanya says with optimism she doesn’t really feel and she hears him snort as she reaches for the phone.

-

There are unanswered questions between them – a distance in the knowledge of what she’d caused, what he’d suffered, the topic on how to prevent it lingering between them as she pokes absently at her nearly full container while he was almost all the way through his own, pausing only to swallow down the coffee she’d saved before getting right back to it.

She puts the white container onto the chair they’d been using as a substitute table, pushing it away, knotting her hands together between her knees as she watches him.

She’s already found herself reaching for the small plastic jar that isn’t there several times, to hear the rattle of pills that had accompanied her for years with a grey fog over her senses.

Habits.

She wonders what habits Five had picked up in the decades spent alone after she’d brought everything to ruin. What sort of routines does one found in nothingness and loneliness? How could he look at her – stay with her – knowing what she’d bring him?

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Five says, finally putting the empty container down and instead shoving a hand into the pocket of his jacket, pulling out an eye of all things as he wipes at his mouth with the other hand. “If you are the one who brings the world to an end then- who does this eye belong to?”

The first thing Vanya sees is brown.

An unfamiliar warm shade that makes her draw back with pieces slotting together in ways she wants nothing to do with as her mouth twists and fingers curl white-knuckled against the couch and Five’s fingers shift to cover it, drawing it back against his chest and out of sight.

She breathes in, out, focusing on the rise and fall of her chest – eyes trailing up towards the clock on the wall.

Leonard.

She’d-

The chair breaks with a loud snap and she hears Five curse, her gaze snapping back towards him as he gives her a flat stare and chagrin blossoms strange and unfamiliar inside of her as she reigns in her powers as he sighs and reaches down to pick up his cup from the floor, turning it over to a couple of mournful drops that hits her already stained carpet.

“We need to leave.” The words leaves her mouth like a realisation. “That eye – he’s going to be here soon.” The knowledge twists up inside of her. “Five-“

He drops the cup to the floor and steps over the mess, stretching out a hand and there’s no questions, no second-guessing.

“Let’s go,” he says.

-

There isn’t many places to go and she finds herself back at the mansion in an echo of what had been – only, Five is beside her and not upstairs in his old room with Klaus crammed into his closet.

She’d never gotten the story behind that – another regret, she supposes, for she had continued on after the loud clutter, deciding that if they hadn’t wanted her to hear then there was no point in lingering.

It had always been that way.

Ordinary Vanya, never a part of things, scrambling for scraps of belonging with sharpie on her wrist.

Klaus nearly swerves right into them, clad in nothing more than a pair of leopard patterned underwear in multiple colours, a cigarette clenched between his teeth and an uncharacteristic dip of his brow that clears at the sight of them.

“Five! Vanya! I’m surprised you actually made your way back _here._ ” He spreads his hands out, a deliberate sort of movement meant to distract. “Personally I can’t _wait_ to get _out._ ”

Five looks vaguely like he’s trying to piece together an interesting puzzle as he stares at what Klaus had become and Vanya feels a flare of protectiveness for the other odd-one-out of Hargreeves children.

“You should probably put on some clothes,” Five suggests just as Vanya dodges past him, ignoring Pogo with a curl of her mouth as she finds his jacket crumbled on the ground beside Allison’s skirt.

“You might have a point, dear brother,” Klaus agrees amenably, lowering his voice theatrically as Vanya picks her way back to them. “Do you have anything good for _dumpster diving?_ ”

-

Five watches them from the fire escape, legs swinging as Vanya peers dubiously into the mess of black bags.

Klaus showed no such reservations, swinging over with only a brief snag of Luther’s too large moon shoes, borrowed without permission, thick dishwasher gloves on his hands and padded out in his jacket and a pair of jeans on insistence of Five.

“Do you have any _idea_ of what people throw away?” he asks, well out of sight, Vanya’s scarf around his neck. “There’s _needles_ there for sure.”

Vanya peers up at him, wondering just how many dumpsters he’d been diving through, before she glances towards Klaus, already dragging one of the heavy bags aside, and decisively hoists herself up and drops down beside him in equally big boots and bright yellow gloves.

Klaus gives her a vaguely surprised look and then a stretch of a grin as she grabs the one he was already holding and together they hoist it out and over the edge.

“What are you looking for anyway?” Five asks, looking vaguely ill at the squish of old food beneath their boots, pulling his own feet up protectively despite being a good two meters above them.

“I don’t _know,_ ” Klaus sighs in theatrical mournfulness. “I think there was a book? Some papers?”

“Something from Dad’s office?” Vanya guesses.

Klaus gives her a swaying double finger-guns with a wink. “Got it in one, sis. _Apparently_ it was something _important._ ”

Vanya pauses, fingers digging into something squishy beneath the thin black plastic and she swallows as they hoist the next over with a wet sad noise that makes Five grimace above them.

She catches Klaus glancing towards something beside him, as if exchanging an inside joke of some kind, almost, and the suspicion of Ben’s presence rears up for not the first time even as the picture of a red leather book with RH in golden flashes before her vision and she digs holes into the next bag, taking morbid joy in the feeling as she practically shoves it over.

Five makes a noise, dipping deeper into her scarf, and Vanya glances down at the yellow gloves and the rotten food clinging to them with a sigh as she wipes them off on the container.

“Klaus.” He makes an inquiring noise, lifting a blue bag aside half-heartedly. “Was the book red with golden lettering on the front? R.H.?”

This time there’s definitively a tilting of his head as he listens to something they weren’t privy too, his finger stroking absently against the open lid. “It might have been,” he admits, feigning nonchalance. “Why?”

Vanya contemplates lying but –

She tugs one glove off and then the other, dropping them into the rest of the trash and dragging a hand through her hair, feeling the brush of short strands at the nape of her neck. “It’s already gone,” she tells him.

“What do you mean it’s already _gone_?” Klaus asks with a dip of confusion and suspicion, copying her as he straightens up. “How could you _possibly_ know that?” His eyes widen and he leans forward. “ _Have you been holding out on us?”_ he whispers, loudly and indiscreetly.

Five peers down at them, hooking a finger against the fabric of her scarf and pulling it down as his brow creases. “Really?” he asks her dubiously. “We’re telling _him_ first _?”_

Vanya falters because she was close enough to have seen the flash of hurt in Klaus eyes – followed by resignation and a stretch of a grin that smoothly hid it all, mouth opening to no-doubt make a crack but she’s faster, straightening up with a decisiveness that is entirely foreign and new but also consuming. “Yes,” she says, cutting him off before he can begin. “He’s – Klaus,” the words tumbles before she shuts her jaw with a click, aware of both their eyes on her as she struggles to put them in order, world tilting around them. “There’s _no one_ I’d rather tell,” she grounds out.

Klaus grabs for the edge of the container, gripping it tight as the ground shakes, metal bending and rattling, eyes wide and cigarette dropping down among the trash as Five drops down with a clang, grabbing for her shoulder as she clenches her teeth down and reaches for her hair, digging her nail into her scalp because _Klaus hadn’t wanted her in the box, he hadn’t he hadn’t he hadn’t-_

“-scoot over-“

“-Klaus-“

Vanya’s eyes widen, world coming to an abrupt and startling halt as arms folds around her, squishing her up against a slim chest, nose pushing against a coat that smells like ash and liquor and heady perfume and she breathes it in as he rocks her stiff form, humming as her hands slowly dropped down to her sides, vision flickering between the spikes of the boxes and the dark coat of her brother.

Water is drizzling down upon them and her mouth twists, hand grasping at his hip as she pushes her forehead against his chest, burrowing into his warmth, fingers digging into his skin.

But he doesn’t protest and she slowly becomes aware of Five hovering awkwardly beside her, giving her time to find her center, matching her breathing to Klaus' before she reluctantly pulls herself back.

“I’m-“

“Don’t apologize,” Five snaps, a strange look flittering through his eyes before he turns away, fists clenched tight, shoulders stiff.

“What out dear brother is trying to say,” Klaus says smoothly. “Is that there’s nothing to apologize _for_.”

Vanya glances aside, to spy for the damage, but Klaus halts her with a surprisingly gentle hand. “None of that – I am promised a conversation and a conversation we’ll have!” And then he folded right down amidst the trash, patting a black bag beside him. “Well?”

Five gave him a mildly horrified look, turning to drop from the railing he was balancing on, but Klaus huffs, reaching out and before he could protest snagged him right down into his lap, Five's body stiffening up and nose flaring as one hand shot back to grasp at Klaus' coat.

Vanya slowly lowered herself down opposite them as Five edged his feet up onto Klaus sprawled leg, looking like a particularly surly child for all that he was a good fifty-eight-years-old.

“You have my ear." Klaus angles his head demonstratively, resting his chin on top of Five’s head, one arm wrapping loosely around his chest, either unaware or completely ignoring the way Five had gone completely still. “Tell me _everything._ ”

-

It takes a long time for Vanya to gather her thoughts, Five crouched up as a stiff gargoyle and Klaus petting his head a bit absently.

In the end, she decides that bluntness has suited her best so far and breathes out, staring down at her hands. “In a couple of days the world is going to end.” She spreads her fingers, looking at the criss-cross of scratch-like scars that littered them from bouts of anxiety, skin dry, nails chewed down.

There’s supposed to be comfort in familiarity and her hands are her best tool – they made music, allowed her to practice the thing that had brought her closest to the sense of joy when everything else in her life had been dull and grey and empty, her siblings circling around her like bright shining lights.

But they’re also the first to suffer at her weakness, scratched raw on nights when she wanted nothing more than to scream, stuck beneath water than would hide any trace of her tears, cracked open raw and bleeding.

“I’m the one who ends it.” She lifts her head, meeting his eyes. “Five – he’s here to stop me.”

“I’m here to stop the _apocalypse,”_ Five stresses with a hiss at his brother, shifting in his grip, pressing down with one hand against Klaus’ wrist.

Klaus hums, ignoring his struggles. “So if what you’re telling us is true – we only have a couple of days left to live unless you get your powers under control?”

_Us._

Vanya bites her tongue and nods, knees drawn up to her chest, arms loosely clasped near her feet.

“So, what’s the plan, Five?” Klaus asks, peering down at him, cheek pressed against his hair.

“I’m – I’m still working out the issues,” he says stiffly. “There’s still seven days left,” he says a tad defensively when Klaus and Vanya exchanges a look because it was such a _Five_ thing. Always ready to do everything on his own, shouldering the world on his back.

“Who else knows?” Klaus asks, glancing at someone or something over her shoulder, the movement auspicious enough that she wouldn’t have given it a second thought if not for-

“Ben,” Vanya hears herself saying and Klaus’ eyes widen owlishly. “He’s – he’s here, right? So – it’s us four.” She bites down on her lip, Five’s brow dipping down, clearly wanting to press it as glances around suspiciously before looking up as best as he can in the grip that suddenly tightens around him.

“How did you _know?_ ” Klaus asks, looking spooked. “Five…?”

“I’m from the future as well – I told you, I cause the end of the world.” Vanya breathes out. “I ended it – everything. And you were _there_ – and so were Ben.”

Klaus shakes his head, looking rather like he didn’t know what to do with the information.

“Five is back from the future after the apocalypse – I’m from the day of the apocalypse,” Vanya clarifies a bit awkwardly. “I’m not – I don’t know _why_ I was sent back but – here I am.”

“And you have powers,” Klaus observes unnecessarily and Vanya tries very hard not to look at the crumbled-up lantern at the end of the alley behind him.

“I’ve always had them,” Vanya says with an empty sort of bitterness. “Dad he – he couldn’t find a way to control them so, he took them away from me. Made me _Ordinary.”_ Her fingers twists into the fabric of her pants.

_“For the first time someone thinks I’m special!”_

She remembers- Allison. Her concern and her denial – the feeling of having someone _looking at her_ for the first time in her _life_ overwhelming everything else. It had made her blind to everything around her – to the very end, jumping hoops inside her own mind, twisting it up to make sense and fit her new world view even as warning signs blared across her senses.

And then, ironically, Leonard – he’d never wanted her, he’d wanted her _powers_.

And she’d been too wrapped up in the _idea_ _of him_ that she hadn’t allowed herself to _see_.

And then Luther-

“He _could do that_?” she jerks, torn from her thoughts at the strange tone in Klaus voice, something flashing across his face before he catches himself and flattens it out.

Five’s face had gone strange as well, glancing cautiously up at him.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him weakly, knowing how much he would have given for a chance to rid himself of his powers.

“No.” Klaus points towards her. “ _You_ are _me_ which means _no._ And _I_ need some food if we’re going to talk more.” He rises decisively, somehow managing to haul Five up along with him from the trash, settling him down on the edge and giving him a nudge off.

He hauls himself after with a bit of a struggle, dangling for a moment with his legs in the air, nudging one boot off and then the other, revealing his sneakers beneath them before he makes an awkward roll off and lands beside Five with a bit of a wobble. “I also want a drink,” he says decisively as Vanya drops down beside him.

-

They do not head to the waffle place, as Klaus tries insistently to steer them towards, but instead back to the mansion they’d grown up in – shepherded off to a bathroom each to clean up after the dumpster diving.

Klaus had whined about it but grudgingly conceded after Five had, very dryly, pointed out that his pants had practically soaked up the content from the trash bag he’d seated himself on.

And – it feels nice, scrubbing herself clean, washing her newly short hair and dressing in a dark green button-up with a stitch of red carnations on the chest, picked from the bag of clothes she’d left behind the day before.

A part of herself had already been resigned to stepping back to the mansion even before leaving it and there’d been no point to bringing it when she would be picking up food as well.

Even if – even if there’d been little to share, in the end. Most of it spilled across the floor, what remained and could be saved split between them.

She finds Five in his old room, hair wet and dressed in another school uniform, one hand resting loosely on the window edge, his gaze focused on something in the distance.

She still has a small towel around her neck, rubbing absently at her hair with an edge of it as she leans against the doorframe.

“You were talking about a _box_ ,” Five informs her, nails tapping absently. “Something about Klaus not wanting you there.”

There’s a question buried in the statement and Vanya glances down the hall, listening to the sound of Klaus in the shower before stepping inside and softly closing the door behind her.

“You weren’t there.” She draws the towel off, hanging it on the back of a chair as she passes it. “You were- busy, trying to save the world.”

He exhales, turning, leaning his shoulder against the wall beside the window and resting his head against it as he considers her. “Too busy for you?”

“You didn’t know,” she says gently.

“I should have,” he responds immediately in that infuriating arrogance that sets her teeth on edge.

“It wasn’t that simple,” she rebuffs and he scoffs, something ugly briefly twisting his face and he turns his gaze back out the window, shoulders bunching up. “It _wasn’t_ ,” she pushes. “I don’t know – I don’t know everything. You kept me out of it – as always – so I have nothing but bits and pieces to go on but you were trying to _save us_ when we were too busy trying to _destroy us!”_

“And what good did it do!?” he demands. “You’re here, the world ends in seven days and I’m- I don’t even have a plan!”

“You can’t have a plan for everything, Five!” she says in mounting frustration.

He spins around, teeth bared. _“But I’m supposed to save you!”_

The fight drains out of her and she stares at him – impossibly young and old at the same time, breathing harsh and something furious and desperate at the same time as he scrubs his face in frustration and turns away from her.

“Five.” Her fingers twitches as his shoulders bunches. “ _Five._ ”

 _“What?”_ he hisses and she shrinks back momentarily before catching herself and straightening up.

“You said we’d do it _together_.”

She stares at his shoulders, watching the stiffness slowly bleed out of them until they slumped down and he breathed out with a sigh. “You know- Delores, she always said the same thing,” he admits with a wry sort of longing. “ _You can’t do everything on your own, Five._ ”

Vanya pauses. “Who is Delores?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I wake up at the beginning of the day and thought to myself that _ah, yes, they're going to have this very important conversation inside a dumpster_...? That would be a no. But, Klaus made his own decisions along the way.
> 
> I've been rewatching tua while writing this, just to keep something in the background, and oof - that scene when Hazel and Cha-Cha shoots Dolores, the aftermath when Five's just sitting there, hugging her...? Yeah, alright, I admit that she's gonna take a bit more center than I first meant (I don't know why I even try to plan things, my brain just goes where it goes).
> 
> Klaus is a very interesting character to me and I'm trying to be mindful of him. I'm sorta picturing him curled up in the shower while Five and Vanya are talking atm, probs with Ben seated on the toilet-lid as they try to make sense of things. But this story is not from either of their perspectives so just - that's what I'm imagining. 
> 
> Your response has been amazing and I wish I didn't have to work and study between stuff so I could just shove all the chapters upon you but alas! You are, however, really making me want to max this show beyond five chapters because oof, you comments have been delightful to read. 
> 
> Will get to reaponding to them in the morning!
> 
> Anyway, my bed is calling my name so ciao on that! Hope you enjoyed~
> 
> (also you can find me as artsy-death on tumblr if you're hanging around there).


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